The Diamond Hunter

by Fiona McIntosh

  About the Book

  When six-year-old Clementine Knight loses her mother to malaria during the 1870s diamond rush in southern Africa, she is left to be raised by her destitute, alcoholic father, James. Much of Clementine’s care falls to their trusty Zulu companion, Joseph One-Shoe, and the unlikely pair form an unbreakable bond.

  When the two men uncover a large, flawless diamond, James believes he has finally secured their future, but the discovery of the priceless gem comes at a huge cost. A dark bargain is struck to do whatever it takes to return Clementine to a respectable life at the Grant family’s sprawling estate in northern England – while the diamond disappears.

  Years on, long-buried memories of Clementine’s childhood in Africa and her beloved Joseph One-Shoe are triggered, as she questions who she can trust. To solve the mystery of what happened to her loved ones all those years ago, she must confront a painful history and finally bring justice to bear.

  From the harsh desert of Africa’s Kimberley diamond mine to the misty, green plains of northern England, The Diamond Hunter is a breathtaking adventure story about trust and betrayal, the ultimate quest for truth, and a love that is truly priceless.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part Two

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Part Three

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  Book Club Notes

  About the Author

  Praise

  Imprint

  Read more at Penguin Books Australia

  For the first man I ever loved . . . and still do. Rest now, Dad, after a long, wonderful life.

  Frederick Richards 1926–2019

  PROLOGUE

  VAAL RIVER, CAPE COLONY, SOUTHERN AFRICA

  September 1871

  The air sagged beneath the burden of the day’s heat and the African sun felt as pitiless as her mother’s gaze upon meeting the man Louisa had chosen to marry.

  Louisa Knight understood now that Death had turned its lens on her. She considered it a personal triumph that neither anger nor despair bloomed in her mind at the realisation that she would not recover from this latest bout of fever. It was a killer of many, so why should she be spared?

  What Louisa did feel, as she contemplated her own end, was regret for all that she must now leave behind. It wouldn’t be long, she grasped, for even as her thoughts finally found clarity as she emerged from the fever that had recently rattled her teeth like dice in a fist, she knew that, in sharp contrast, her body was slumping towards surrender.

  Louisa would take her final breath and the two people closest to her wouldn’t know that she had slipped away. Somehow that felt easier. She didn’t want to see any more guilt in her husband’s hooded eyes, or fear in her child’s. Instead she allowed the regrets to line up before her. The most important stared back with a wistful smile: she wished she could have lived to see her daughter grow up to fulfil all her early promise. Clementine’s language was advanced, her instincts – particularly her empathy – were already well developed, and her thoughts were, at times, so complex Louisa worried for her. I hope my daughter wants more for her life than just becoming a dutiful wife, she thought.

  How ironic. She had not only settled for marriage as her life’s sole achievement but she had outraged her family by falling for someone without pedigree or wealth. Despite her wry thought, no amusement could reach her lips; control over her body had already been ceded. Just a little longer, she begged, so she could arrange her thoughts fully and leave this life with a tidy mind.

  Yes, she had married a poor man. Leaving him behind was her second regret. In their seven years together, she had known only love with James. Their passion for each other had burned bright, like magnesium. It was so strong it blinded them, obscuring everyone and everything around them in shadow.

  She had chosen him instinctively, knowing it would cost her at some point, and the debt was going to be paid sooner than she’d imagined. What a pity. But if she looked at her twenty-seven years, she had never been without love. Her parents lavished her with affection, her half-brother adored her – and she, him – and then her love, James . . . well, he simply worshipped her. On the surface they were mismatched – she could hardly deny it – but in truth they were a perfect fit, finding each other addictive.

  Poor, darling James. His boundless desire to impress upon her family that poverty should not define him had guided his capricious decisions. One of those unpredictable choices would now kill her. There was no way out of this.

  She turned to her third regret: beloved Reggie. She had never thought of him as a half-sibling. He was her big brother and she loved him unreservedly. She could imagine him in England at this moment, all but shaking a fist at her for being gullible, for being a stupid romantic fool. ‘What about your family? What about your life here in England? Woodingdene is yours – it will never be mine; we should be running it together. And if you won’t think of yourself, then how about considering Clementine in your foolhardy adventure? My niece is every inch a Grant.’

  She couldn’t deny it. Their daughter behaved more like his child than James’s. She was serious, driven, not at all unreliable. Even now at six she was dependable in her moods, her ways, her promises. And yet the little girl adored her father as much as Louisa did. James could make their serious child laugh in the tightest of situations, and Clementine would have to rely on that now because the grimmest of circumstances was not far off. The youngster’s emerging character was about to be tested in the toughest of ways. She hoped her husband would no longer call home this tent in which she now lay prone, but instead would decide to cut his losses and return to England.

  What had life come to? Now she ate, slept and made love under canvas. Her family would be appalled. She hoped they would never discover her way of life in Africa. They may reimburse James for the headstone she’d already ordered. He would discover it was ready, waiting for him to tell the undertaker the words he wanted hammered into the stone. Nothing grand. James would keep it simple, but his grief would be hard, complex. A month ago she’d written him a letter, after emerging from her second bout of fever, and then hid it for him to find at the right time. She’d felt she needed to warn him against being selfish in his grief . . . to remember the child in his life. She’d written that letter knowing she would never leave Africa or see the soft, misted greens of the vale at Woodingdene again. This new and surely fatal fever had arrived, cruelly early, in the dark hours prior to dawn, after James had departed to be one of the first at the riverside to dig for his precious diamonds.

  She turned inwards again, to contemplate her final regret. Too tiny to matter to anyone else, yet the pain of this loss hurt the most. T
he baby growing within her had never had a chance, despite her best hopes to live out the year. She hadn’t told James that he was to be a father again; the right moment hadn’t arisen since they’d alighted from the ship at Cape Town because she’d needed to be sure. She had sickened throughout the voyage from England but had presumed it was simply a lack of sea legs. Unfortunately, her health had taken a darker turn. Her precious boy – she was sure it was a son – would accompany her to the grave. The Little Karoo – this African desert – would take her and her son into its secret, silent depths and keep them until their parched bones became part of its limitless dust. James had never understood why she didn’t want him to reach for her in the humble cot they shared. He’d wrongly interpreted her resistance as despair – a sort of punishment for the misery he’d brought her. The truth was she had needed every ounce of strength for the baby, but now it was too late for him. James did not need the torture of knowing that she had taken his child with her.

  Louisa pushed that darkness aside and considered the events that had collided to deliver her into the Cape Colony. This whole sorry mess had come down to weather. How thoroughly British, she thought with no amusement.

  Their ship had foundered around the Cape of Good Hope. They’d been advised in London that the P&O ships were now sailing via the Suez Canal, which had opened almost two years previously, but James, refusing to accept any help from her private funds, had paid for what he could afford. The Shaw, Savill and Co ships still braved the route around the frightening Cape and braced for the roaring forties, which would speed them to the other side of the world and that great continent of Australia.

  His determination and pride had impressed her, turning down what her money could so easily have bought for them. It had all sounded like such a grand adventure back home in Northumberland. Nothing could hurt her at Woodingdene Estate. She’d grown up among servants and wealth, indulged by all. In the back of her mind had always been the obligation to make a good marriage – to continue the creation of wealth and their family’s name. She knew her father had hoped that through her he would gain the respectability he craved.

  ‘Marry old money,’ he’d urged her. ‘I want you to enjoy a good name and all that it can offer you.’

  ‘But I like Grant,’ she’d insisted on numerous occasions.

  ‘So did your mother when she married me, but even she can see the benefit of our only daughter joining our family strategically to another so our grandchildren will reap the rewards.’

  ‘What about Reggie?’

  ‘Don’t start, Louisa. It’s hard enough as it is. I am fond of Reggie, but he will always —’

  ‘I regard him as my brother, a true Grant, and not whatever it was you were about to say.’

  Her father had smiled. ‘He’s lucky you’re his half-sister, but he won’t be the man in your life for much longer, my darling. You’re twenty now. I’m afraid we must unleash your mother so she has the freedom to start hunting the best matches.’

  ‘I will marry for love, Father.’

  ‘Indeed you will. I suspect your mother loves me but don’t for a moment think she didn’t first fall in love with my bank account and how happily I spent its contents on her.’

  It was true. Her father was generous with his money; she’d heard as much murmured by jealous women out of her mother’s earshot.

  ‘Have you seen how he splashes it around? That monstrous house he’s building up north! So garish.’

  ‘New money always is, dear.’

  ‘Look at the way he lavishes it on her. She’s like a chandelier, she sparkles so much.’ Louisa had liked the image of her mother as a twinkling chandelier, but when she’d heard their cruel accompanying laughter she’d understood that this was not a compliment.

  Her father’s country manor was indeed a monster, sitting on near one thousand acres of private land, but to her child’s eyes Woodingdene Estate was a friendly house with magical gardens. Henry Grant had chosen to mark his worldly standing with bricks, using his ability to generate money from a wide range of overseas investments to fund this gregarious dwelling that reflected all his travels. She grew up to learn that its taste was not so much fashionable as ostentatious. Nevertheless, Woodingdene was well ahead of its time in its design, furnishings, and especially its new-fangled hydroelectric generator that powered the house, which had the whole county talking. Little wonder people spoke about Woodingdene as if it had arrived from beyond the moon to settle on a natural crag just beneath the hill. The sprawling estate plunged gently towards a lake and a slow-moving stream, via rock gardens, a stunning arboretum and valley gardens with gentle waterfalls.

  She didn’t dare dwell right now on the iron bridge that had her initials romantically wrought into its design. This was James’s work, commissioned by her father, thus bringing together the young woman full of uncontrolled passions and the quixotic Scottish engineer with whom she had fallen in love, before falling prey to his adventuring spirit.

  So come now, Death whispered in her mind. Time draws close.

  Louisa Knight felt the lightest of breezes stir her hair, which had once been described by her husband as ‘fairy’s tresses’. When she had asked why, he explained it was so long and soft that a fairy could snuggle up and go to sleep in one of its darkly golden curls. Today it was moist – dull now, she was sure, but that didn’t matter any more.

  ‘Clementine?’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m here, Mummy.’ She felt a little hand grip hers. So Clementine had never left her side.

  ‘Fetch your father . . . but hug me first.’

  She felt the chubby arms reach around her neck and the touch of a soft, warm cheek against her dry, feverish face; heard her daughter remind her that she loved her and say that she would run down to the river to fetch her father.

  ‘Good girl, my darling.’ She had just enough strength to steal a kiss of her child’s cheek, the skin velvety like a ripe peach. She hoped her daughter saw a smile as she pulled away, for she knew it would be gone on her return . . . and so would she.

  James Knight was on the brink of losing everything.

  He’d already lost his opportunity in Australia, and his status as a rising young engineer had evaporated too. His wife tended to look at him now in a different way, and her understanding showed not in her eyes but at the edges of her lips, which tugged south in an unspoken message of disappointment. James knew Louisa fought it: she still told him she loved him, and her voice always found that special tenderness despite his failings. But she no longer wanted to feel his hands on her body or the heat of his desire for her. Her recurring illness had diminished her proud frame to a skeletal version of itself. Shoulders that had once been squared were now rounded in resignation. He had admired her idealism when they met, and had fallen in love with the woman who wanted to share his adventures – to be an enthusiastic, romantic wife to her swashbuckling, fortune-hunter husband. But he’d also seen the dismay that had clouded her normally loving gaze when he’d proposed his entrepreneurial idea to leave their ship bound for Australia and remain on this continent. It was an audacious plan, with huge risk but high stakes: everything he responded to and everything she’d been raised to avoid.

  His energy and promises had convinced her but she had to set aside the realisation that James had already booked their transport to the diamond diggings in the Cape Colony before he won her assent. He had been confident of his persuasive power. ‘We’re closer to home,’ he’d assured her as they stood on the dock and waved goodbye to the people they’d come to know.

  But what James knew now, a year on, was that whether Africa or Australia, it didn’t matter – his darling Louisa no longer cared for his wandering spirit and promises of fortune. That latter was especially pointed, given she was a wealthy woman in her own right and several times had offered to pay their passage home as well as fund his exploits, so long as their life became easier. He’d refused both in his usual cavalier manner, claiming that living out of a tent woul
d give them a new appreciation for life when he struck it big. But now he was down to the last few pounds he had to his name. His name! That held no currency either; if anything it was a filthy word to his wife’s family, and he knew all too well how much they hated it that their two prized girls, Louisa and Clementine, were forced to bear his name as their own.

  James pushed the shovel into the ground and threw its contents into his tray. He took an unhappy breath, already certain that there was no telltale reflection of sunshine lighting on a diamond. Even in the rough, these magnificent stones could make a man’s throat tighten. He’d joined the rush with tens of thousands of other opportunists from all over the world, hoping to get rich quick. Few had. But even fewer would give up as long as some were hitting the big time.

  ‘Daddy?’

  ‘Sweet Clementine – what’s up, my wee darlin’?’

  His daughter was tiptoeing barefoot into the water alongside him, her skirts soaked.

  ‘Mummy’s sick again. Can you come?’

  ‘Did she send you?’ He hoped so, because then maybe he could avert the blame for Clem’s wet clothes.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right, darlin’. I shan’t be long.’

  ‘Can I wait with you? I don’t like being alone watching her look so sad.’

  James frowned. ‘Is she sleeping now?’

  His little girl, gazing seriously from eyes that looked too large for her head, nodded. ‘She just woke up but then she fell asleep again.’

  ‘Just a wee while, then. I’ll do a few more panloads.’

  ‘Will you tell me the story of Baby Joseph’s Pebble?’ she asked. ‘I’ll help you look.’ She peered into the tray as he shook it.

  He smiled. Even his little girl had been captured by stories from only a decade or so back that had now become legend. James caught the glance of a fellow labouring not far away from him – certainly within ear’s reach. He liked the Zulu man: quiet, stolid, hardworking. They’d become friendly through Clem mostly, who talked to everyone.